Digital Freedom Fund, a super PAC launched in 2025 by Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, spent more than $81,000 on direct mail backing Republican Ken Paxton and opposing Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race. The PAC also spent in Ohio, bringing its support for Republican Jon Husted to about $7 million, and reported raising about $34 million as of Sept. 30. Prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket heavily favored Democrats retaking the House and Senate in 2027, a result that would significantly affect the chances of passing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Paxton had earlier benefited from $500,000 in ads funded by Fellowship PAC, which went through Nxum Group, co-founded by former Trump crypto adviser Bo Hines, and Nxum reportedly received $6.3 million in a deal with Tether.
Summary written by Upside AI from the original article. Read the source for full details.
Read the original on Cointelegraph ↗
Keywords
cryptomidterm electionsregulationDemocratic Party
Open a keyword to see other news on the same topic.
Related tickers and likely impact
BTC/USDT
• NeutralBitcoin
Relevance: low
| Market | Crypto |
|---|---|
| Exchange | Binance |
| Sector | Layer 1 |
| Market cap | $1.6T |
| Close on 10/21/2026 | 84,093.42 |
| Change that session | +1.28% |
Impact is scored by AI from the headline and may be wrong. It is not investment advice.
Related news
- Crypto Super PAC Fairshake Pours Millions More Into Defeating Sherrod Brown
Crypto super PAC Fairshake has reported fresh spending to defeat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio, pushing its total against him past $40 million. A Federal Election Commission filing signed Oct. 15 shows affiliate Defend American Jobs disclosed a $5.2 million media buy against Brown, another roughly $1.95 million days later, plus production costs, bringing his calendar-year total to about $46.66 million, the most expensive 2026 target for the industry. The same filing shows parallel spending supporting his Republican opponent Jon Husted. The move follows Fairshake's Oct. 5 announcement backing 32 House incumbents, with an initial $6 million committed to six of them. Brown, a longtime crypto critic who chaired the Senate Banking Committee, lost his seat in 2024 after Fairshake spent roughly $40 million to help defeat him.
- Crypto is making a splash in U.S. elections — but chiefly in jabs about industry influence
Crypto has become a campaign issue in the U.S. midterms, mainly as a target of Democratic attacks rather than a topic in industry-funded ads, which avoid mentioning it. Democrats including Mark Warner and Sherrod Brown link the sector's political spending and its ties to President Donald Trump to corruption concerns. Brown said the crypto and data-center crowd had reached up to $40 million in spending, with much of the opposition ads against him in Ohio funded by the Fairshake super PAC. Fairshake also spent $2 million in a failed bid to defeat Oliver Gilbert in a Florida primary. A Fox News poll found 88% of voters were at least very concerned about government corruption, a top issue that gives these attacks weight.
- Crypto PACs escalate spending against Sherrod Brown in Ohio Senate race
At least two crypto-aligned PACs have spent over $52 million opposing Sherrod Brown's return to the Senate. Defend American Jobs, an affiliate of the Fairshake PAC largely funded by Coinbase and Ripple Labs, spent $46.6 million on media opposing Brown and supporting Republican incumbent Jon Husted, well above the $30 million Fairshake initially planned in September. The Digital Freedom Fund, created by Gemini co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, reported about $3 million in ads this week, bringing its Ohio total to more than $5.9 million. With just under three weeks until the election and early voting underway for 10 days, the Fairshake affiliate also spent over $6.7 million opposing Independent Dan Osborn in Nebraska's Senate race. Fairshake's expenditures have already exceeded its 2024 total of $41 million, and it held $193 million in cash in January.
- Crypto PACs report $2.7M spending blitz on House races as midterms loom
With 22 days until the US midterm elections, two affiliates of Fairshake, a PAC funded largely by Cantor Fitzgerald, Coinbase and Ripple Labs, reported a combined $2.7 million in media spending to FEC on House races. The spending includes $512,000 for Pete Aguilar, $500,000 for Josh Gottheimer, more than $76,000 for Tom Emmer and $73,000 for Glenn Thompson, all of whom voted for the CLARITY Act in 2025. Fairshake also plans to endorse 32 more House candidates and had $122 million in cash as of August. The PAC intends to spend at least $30 million opposing Sherrod Brown, a former banking committee chair who voted against many crypto-favorable bills, in Ohio's Senate race. The CLARITY Act passed the House but failed a Senate procedural vote in September, and Stand With Crypto has warned that lawmakers who fail to advance such legislation could face consequences in the midterms.
- Trump's approval rating on economy hits all-time low as midterm looms: CNBC survey
A CNBC survey finds eight out of 10 Americans rate the economy as fair or poor, and Trump's economic approval has fallen to 34% with 65% disapproving, the lowest of either of his terms. Overall, 63% of respondents are pessimistic about the economy, including 35% of Republicans, the highest level of GOP pessimism in either of Trump's terms. The survey of 1,000 registered voters, with a margin of error of ±3.1%, shows 52% prefer Democratic control of Congress versus 45% for Republicans, ahead of the midterm elections on Nov. 3. Trump's overall approval stands at 40% with 59% disapproving, while only 46% say the Iran military action was worth it, down from 53% in April. Government corruption is the top concern for 36% of respondents, and Democrats hold a 4-point lead on addressing it.
- Midterm Elections Are Shaping Up as a Worst-Case Scenario for the Stock Market, but This Isn't the Full Story
The U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 3 could leave Congress divided from January 2027, with Polymarket traders giving a 63% chance that Democrats retake both chambers and a 29% chance that Republicans keep the Senate but lose the House. Retirement Researcher data from 1926 through 2023 show the S&P 500 averaged a 7.33% annual return under a Republican president facing a divided Congress, well below the 14.01% to 16.63% averages in the other three scenarios analyzed. The article argues that stocks still outperform bonds, commodities and real estate over the long term, and that legislative gridlock can give investors a sense of predictability because major laws are less likely to pass. It notes that the stock market has historically continued to rise in the long run regardless of how political power is arranged.
Related markets
Latest news
- OpenAI nears up to $30 billion funding round at $1.25 trillion valuation led by UAE investors
OpenAI is nearing a funding round of up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation, led by UAE investors alongside Coatue, with that valuation excluding the new capital. The company aims to get signatures by the end of next week, though the final size is still being determined. The raise is positioned as an “opportunistic” bridge ahead of a potential IPO, which CFO Sarah Friar has told employees will likely come in 2027. OpenAI is also negotiating a commercial deal that would secure more computing capacity from the UAE. The move comes amid choppy tech markets, with jitters around CoreWeave and concerns about financing as interest rates rise, while Anthropic's expected IPO will test investor appetite. OpenAI has filed confidentially to go public.
- Here's what is spooking investors as Meta stock stumbles
RBC Capital Markets analyst Brad Erickson says Meta shares are under pressure after earnings, with the language in the company's filing unsettling investors. He explains that Meta is issuing non-voting stock to fund billions in AI spending while preserving CEO Mark Zuckerberg's voting control. Erickson said the dilution level cited, nearly 800 billion, is probably well above the actual investment, and that the CFO described that language as boilerplate. He also noted the move lets Zuckerberg keep control and stay in California while a tax situation is being worked out.
- A lesson from poker tells us not to fold on Meta after its earnings sell-off. Here’s why
Meta's strong quarterly results were overshadowed by concerns over AI spending, sending shares down 7% on Thursday. Bears point to dilution risk, as Meta plans new non-voting Class C shares to fund AI infrastructure and free cash flow turned negative in the quarter. A New Mexico judge also ordered Meta to pay a $25 billion penalty over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which the company plans to appeal, and Meta booked a $9.89 billion legal settlement charge in the quarter. Bulls argue the core business remains strong, with the new Muse app off to a strong start, and CFO Susan Li said in-house content models are outperforming prior versions in offline tests.
- Resideo Announces Expected Q1 Software Update to Honeywell Home Smart Thermostats for Compatibility with Apple HomeView
Resideo plans to release a software update in the first quarter of 2027 that will let its existing Honeywell Home ElitePRO, X7S and X8S smart thermostats support the new Adaptive Temperature Control and Clean Energy Guidance features tied to Apple's HomeView offerings. Homeowners can get these features without replacing devices or paying for extra professional installation. The thermostats already work with Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa and other ecosystems and are Matter certified. Resideo says it works with more than 100,000 professionals worldwide, who bring its products into more than 15 million installations annually.
- Why Nokia Sank today
Nokia shares fell 15.4% on Thursday, as of mid-afternoon, in a sector-wide sell-off of AI-related stocks, even though the company beat earnings expectations. Third-quarter revenue rose 9.7% to 5.15 billion euros, adjusted EPS rose 50% to $0.09, and operating margin expanded 220 basis points. AI and cloud customer revenue jumped 123% and order intake for that segment rose 118%, while mobile networks grew only 5%. Nokia reiterated but did not raise its full-year 2026 guidance, and the article says high expectations after the stock's rally this year, along with fears about the sustainability of AI spending, weighed on shares.
- Google Is Paying SpaceX $11 Billion a Year for Compute. Here's the Concentration Risk Nobody Is Pricing In.
Google has started paying SpaceX $920 million per month, or $11 billion per year, to lease xAI's cloud infrastructure through 2029, rather than building more data centers to fill its shortage of Nvidia GPUs. According to Synergy Research Group, Google held 15% of the global cloud infrastructure market in the second quarter of 2026, placing third behind AWS (28%) and Microsoft Azure (20%), while Google Cloud revenue rose from $19.2 billion in 2021 to $58.7 billion in 2025. The deal gives Google access to a cluster of roughly 110,000 GPUs, and Alphabet owns a 4%–5% stake in SpaceX. The author warns the arrangement adds concentration risk: Google is effectively funding xAI's growth into a cloud competitor, it reinforces Nvidia's dominance, and the cluster sits at xAI's centralized facilities, including Colossus in Tennessee, where power failures or disruptions could affect many tenants.
Get the briefing on Telegram or Zalo
Join the Upside Telegram channel or Zalo group for the Vietnam stocks and gold briefing at 8:00 and 19:00 (Vietnam time) on trading days, plus a weekly wrap on Saturday morning.